Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Wolves were the first communists, or why canines taught hominids how to be social
And here we see the co-evolution of gesturing. Humans have gestures, wolves have gestures, but wolves do not understand human gestures. However, dogs do. The example of the dingo is most illuminating: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingo#Social_behavior Other forms of communication During observations, growling made up 65% of the observed vocalizations. It was always used in an agonistic context, as well as for dominance and reactively as a defence sound. Similar to many other domestic dogs, a reactive usage of defensive growling could only be observed rarely or not at all. Growling very often occurs in combination with other sounds, and was observed almost exclusively in swooshing noises (similar to barking). Mix-sounds, mostly growl-mixes, are mostly emitted in an agonistic context.[15] During observations in Germany, there was a sound found among Australian dingoes which the observers called Schrappen. It was only observed in an agonistic context, mostly as a defence against obtrusive pups or for defending resources. It was described as a bite intention, where the receiver is never touched or hurt. Only a silent, but significant, clashing of the teeth could be heard.[15] Aside from vocal communication, dingoes communicate like all domestic dogs via scent marking specific objects (e.g. spinifex) or places (waters, trails, hunting grounds, etc.) using chemical signals from their urine, feces, and scent glands. Males scent-mark more frequently than females, especially during the mating season. They also scent-rub whereby a dog rolls on its neck, shoulders, or back on something that is usually associated with food or the scent markings of other dogs.[4] Unlike wolves, dingoes can react to social cues and gestures from humans. [ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] On the arbitrary vs. motivated in human communication
Oops, forgot the most interesting part of the discussion, the border collies: http://www.bordercollierescue.org/advice/Content/UniCommands.html ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Wolves were the first communists, or why canines taught hominids how to be social
This is an absolutely fascinating page about wolves and other wolf-like canines. What strikes me most when reading it, is that the sheer utter success of the wolves and coyotes in being top-predator in all the places that humans eventually got to. It also shows me I know very little about wolves, but they are a fascinating group of beings to co-evolve with. It seems most likely that the coy-dogs of E. US are not coyote-dog mixes but red wolf-dog mixes, although the coyote is hybridizing with red wolves. I like the story of a coyote who made a point with a dog owner: he attacked the guys shepherd and didn't kill him, but left him 'emasculated'. http://hal_macgregor.tripod.com/kennel/wolves.html CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Wolves were the first communists, or why canines taught hominids how to be social
Tie these two sets of information together, and we might be able to theorize some plausible scenarios for Neanderthal extinction. When you look at Neanderthal vs. Cro Magnon, you have to ask why in particular Cro Magnon survives and carries on the human line, but Neanderthals go extinct. One expert on Neanderthals and Cro Magnons argues that Cro Magnons mastered fires, burnt woodlands (hunting in which Neanderthals were better at) which created at least pockets of plains, which were better for herds of animals to be hunted (and then later managed and hunted, and then later domesticated). This seems plausible because we know that MesoAmericans and AmerIndians did this--creating areas for larger buffalo populations. They later got the horse when the Spaniards brought them, so before this they would have had to hunt buffalos on foot with dogs. Another point: burning woodlands drives the wolves off the land (even if they adapt to prairie they lose their social cohesiveness and live in smaller numbers) but perhaps helps turn them into dogs? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal Additionally, Neanderthals evidently had little long-term planning when securing food. French caves show almost no salmon bones during Neanderthal occupancy but large numbers during Cro-Magnon occupancy. In contrast, Cro-Magnons planned for salmon runs months ahead of time, getting enough people together at just the right time and place to catch a lot of fish. Neanderthals appear to have had little to no social organization beyond the immediate family unit. Why Neanderthal psychology was different from the modern humans that they coexisted with for millennia is not known.[36] Due to the paucity of symbolism that Neanderthal artifacts show, Neanderthal language probably did not deal much with a verbal future tense, again restricting Neanderthal exploitation of resources. Cro-Magnon people had a much better standard of living than the hardscrabble existence available to Neanderthals. With better language skills and bigger social groups, a better psychological repertoire, and better planning, Cro-Magnon people, living alongside the Neanderthals on the same land, outclassed them in terms of life span, population, available spare time (as shown by Cro-Magnon art), physical health and lower rate of injury, infant mortality, comfort, quality of life, and food procurement. The advantages held by Cro-Magnon people let them by this time to thrive in worse climatic conditions than their Neanderthal counterparts. As weather worsened about 30,000 years ago, Jordan notes it would have taken only one or two thousand years of inferior Neanderthal skills to cause them to go extinct, in light of better Cro-Magnon performance in all these areas.[36] About 55,000 years ago, the weather began to fluctuate wildly from extreme cold conditions to mild cold and back in a matter of a few decades. Neanderthal bodies were well suited for survival in cold climate- their barrel chests and stocky limbs stored body heat better than the Cro-Magnons. However the rapid fluctuations of weather caused ecological changes that the Neanderthals could not adapt to. The weather changes were so rapid that within a lifetime the plants and animals that one had grown up would be replaced by completely different plants and animals. Neanderthal's ambush techniques would have failed as grasslands replaced trees. A large number of Neanderthals would have died during these fluctuations which maximized about 30,000 years ago. [102] Studies on Neanderthal body structures have shown than they needed more energy to survive than the Cro-Magnon man. Their energy needs were up to 350 calories more per day compared to the Cro-Magnon man. When food became scarce this calorie for survival difference played a major role in Neanderthal extinction. [102] Jordan states the Chatelperronian tool tradition suggests Neanderthals were making some attempts at advancement, as Chatelperronian tools are only associated with Neanderthal remains. It appears this tradition was connected to social contact with Cro-Magnons of some sort. There were some items of personal decoration found at these sites, but these are inferior to contemporary Cro-Magnon items of personal decoration and arguably were made more by imitation than by a spirit of original creativity. At the same time, Neanderthal stone tools were sometimes finished well enough to show some aesthetic sense.[36] As Jordan notes: A natural sympathy for the underdog and the disadvantaged lends a sad poignancy to the fate of the Neanderthal folk, however it came about.[3 http://www.swampfox.demon.co.uk/utlah/Articles/origins1.html Paxton then takes this theory another step forward. By using carbon dating and other anthropological techniques it is known that mankind itself was undergoing a radical evolutionary change during the same period that dogs were being domesticated. We now know that there were actually two separate bipedal ape species
[Marxism-Thaxis] A little march on Wall Street, finally
A visit at the end of the month of April would be close to May Day. CB A critical terrain of struggle http://peoplesworld.org/a-critical-terrain-of-struggle/ by: Sam Webb April 14 2010 tags: economy, banks, financial reform, labor The AFL-CIO and its new president, Richard Trumka, are going to spend a day on Wall Street at the end of this month. Trumka, along with 10,000 trade unionists and their supporters, are expected to gather in Lower Manhattan where the wheels of the financial industry turn. As you might guess, this isn't a sightseeing trip. Labor visits Wall Street in a bullish mood. It is demanding more than cosmetic changes dressed up as real reform. Don't expect President Trumka to ring the bell that begins the Stock Exchange trading day, but it is likely he will wring a few necks, in a figurative sense. Not everyone on Wall Street is planning to welcome its visitors. Kathryn S. Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, for example, said that labor's action and economic plan are unfortunate. She went on to say, This is a time when Americans should be pulling together ... Demonizing Wall Street diminishes us in the eyes of the world. Hello! Wall Street, in case you don't know, Ms. Wylde, demonized and diminished itself in the eyes of the world. There is nothing that Trumka can say that will do further damage to the Street's reputation. It has already been done and it was self-inflicted. Furthermore, in insisting that Americans should be pulling together, she badly misreads the public mood. Ordinary people could care less about making nice to the engineers of this massive crisis that has left millions without jobs, homes and income. What Americans are demanding is that these financial schemers and firms be held accountable for their misdeeds of the past and be regulated in the future. The financial manipulators should be glad that that is all that is on the people's agenda so far. They are lucky to retain their parasitic wealth, remain in charge of our financial institutions, and escape jail time for grand larceny on a scale that is unprecedented. Next time they won't be so fortunate. Be that as it may, the immediate point of contention is financial regulation - will it be light or tough? Should hedge and private equity funds be regulated? Should the derivative market be tightly policed and transparent? Should capital requirements be increased to cut down exposure to risk? Should taxpayers' money bail out mega-banks and their shareholders and bondholders? Should the oversight power of the Federal Reserve be expanded? Should a consumer financial protection agency be independent? Should the ratings agencies be overhauled? Not surprisingly, the financial institutions prefer light regulation, while the coalition opposing Wall Street, while not completely of one mind, favors stronger regulation. In a larger sense, from the standpoint of the top layers of financial institutions - Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo - the current legislative struggle over financial regulation is but one battle, although a crucial one, in an ongoing struggle to fully restore themselves to the preeminent position in the global economy that they occupied for the past three decades. They like being captain of the ship, and the logic of the capitalism (its unending and competitive chase for more and more profits) pressures them in this direction too. After sitting at the pinnacle of power, seeing their wealth exponentially multiply, and shaping the dynamics and contours of the world economy, they are not about to yield, or even slightly lessen, their power and privileged position without a fight. Call the financial czars whatever you like, but they are well aware of their class interests. What is more, they are mindful of the fact that the New Deal regulations hemmed them in for roughly four decades. Admittedly none of these fat cats starved, but during that period they did not enjoy the nearly unchallenged political and economic sway that they were able to grab in the Reagan-Clinton-Bush era. Thus the stakes are high. Whatever the outcome of the legislative fight over financial reform, the struggle to curb and eventually eliminate the power of finance capital will go on, and its outcome will have a major impact on the politics and economics of our nation. If finance capital has its way, the prospects of working people are bleak - not to mention the probability of another deep crisis increases. If, on the other hand, the power of finance capital is progressively curbed in the course of successive and contentious struggles, the future of the multi-racial working class and its allies is far brighter. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] End game: Part 4 on the Communist Internationals (UAW unions in real time)
End game The political battles waged by Marx and Engels to give the First International an outlook and program independent of all ideology of the propertied classes has been outlined and preserved as part of the Soviet Legacy in Marx and the Trade Unions. Marx and the Trade Unions, by A. Lozovsky (pseudo, Dridzo, Solomon Abranovich) issued by International Publishers dated March 14, 1933 Moscow, captures every fundamental political struggle Marx conducted in the First International. It has been more than twenty years since I have had the occasion and need to restudy this wonderful text. Issued under the rising curve of Soviet power, this text contains all the historical and theoretical errors of the period in which it was issued. This period can be called the era of Marxism-Leninism. A historical era is historical precisely because no one in the era can discern their error. This is so because the social process has not attained a degree of development to bring froth the new distinct features of the entire process. Specifically, the means of production does not move in contradiction with the relations of production but rather antagonism. The contradiction that is means of production and relations of production is the internal drive and impulse establishing the self movement of society as development of the mode of production. The mode of production is driven through successive quantitative boundaries of development. The quality that is being developed quantitatively was industrialism. Today, the industrial revolution has given way to the post industrial revolution and a new quality of means of production. The appearance of this new quality of productive forces brings to antagonism - not contradiction, the society founded on industrialism. The historical error is the conception of the class struggle of the proletariat as contradiction. The bourgeoisie and proletariat are birthed in contradiction as the unity of a production relations or social relations of production. These new classes - bourgeoisie and proletariat, are simultaneously birthed in antagonism with feudalism and all the old classes (old production relations) marking feudalism as distinct property relation or the landed property relations, or a specific social system (mode of production). Under the feudal system the serf could not overthrow the nobility because together them constituted the building blocks of the mode of production. What was and is required to displace a mode of production, is a qualitative development of means of production, creating new classes and new relations of production. Capitalist/industrial society, as a mode of production is no different in its historical evolution as a mode of production. During the various boundaries of development of the industrial system and capitalism the proletariat at the front of the curve of development did not and could not overthrow capital in the advanced countries until the means of production began evolution in antagonism with the relations of production. At the back of the curve of industrial development it was possible to impose a communist regime on society during the leap from agriculture to industry. Such was the case with the Russian October Revolution. This distinct law was not formulated and articulated until the mid and late 1980’s by a small section of the American communist movement. Reality Check The decay of industrial unionism is no where more striking than in the state of Michigan and the historic Detroit nexus of automotive production. The practical activity of the proletarian movement in America demanded a revisiting of this text. The post industrial revolution is the environment and context for the decay of industrial trade unionism in the same way that the rising industrial revolution was the context for the decay of craft unionism as the cutting edge of the early trade union movement. What is different today is that the struggle of the workers is spontaneously leaping outside the boundary of the trade union movement. A glance at the membership numbers of the auto workers union is instructive. (Note: These figures are for total membership rather than auto workers only. Air plane workers and agricultural implement workers are included in the early years. After the 1980 service workers are included. A real break down of all the numbers and category of workers would be revealing. At this point I do not have such information. There are roughly 90 - 100, 000 active UAW auto workers. And falling.) UAW Average Annual Dues Paying Membership 1936 through 2008 1936 27,058 1976 1,358,364 1937 231,8941977 1,440,988 1938 144,097 1978 1,499,425 1939 155,845 1979 1,527,858 1940 246,038 1980
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Wolves were the first communists, or why canines taught hominids how to be social
On 4/14/10, Carrol Cox cb...@ilstu.edu wrote: I like a speculation by the aughor of The Monkey in the Mirror (I forget his name just now) as to the origin of language. First, he assumes (which seems right to me) that the cpacity for language was a spandrel, not a trait in itself seleced for. Then he tells the story of a tropp of monkeys who lived by a beach, most of their food was sandy. Some infants begin washing it in the surf, and after a time the whole monkey tribe was washing their food. It was a pure invention rather than an evolved trait, and it was an invention of the young. Then he notes that Neanderthals and humans shared the earth for about 60k years, but suddenly in Europe, over a 5k period, the Neanderthals disappeared 40k years ago: at the same time that symbolic as well as playful cave paintings appeared. His sdpeculation: language was invented by children; probably invented several times in different places before at some point it caught on among adults, at which point it would have become species-wide almost instantly. The idea of language as an invention emerging from play (which is a kind of ritual) makes a lot of sense. For the most part language would have been no selective advantage, and perhaps a handicap, for ealry paleolithic life. They only needed signals, not symbols. (We are still apt to use signals rather than symbols or discourse in emergency situations.) And there have been reports of children ignored by the adults developing their own language among themselves: it's a real possibility. Carrol ^^^ CB: My speculative story is that language and symboling was invented by mothers to communicate with their children, toys and such. On Carrol's discussion of the relationship of language to human adaptation and natural selective advantage, I'd say that language , culture and symbolling were _the_ major adaptive advantage for the human species _especially_ in its earliest years. Language may have arisen as a spandrel, but it very early on became selected for, i.e. gave enormous adaptive advantage over those species in a similar niche who did not have language. On the idea that the early humans only needed signs and in emergencies, their behavior in non-emergency and pre-emergency situations are just as important to adaptation and selective advantage as behavior in emergencies. Emergencies would be largely avoiding falling prey to predators. But in the role of predator-hunter and food gatherer, hunter-gatherer-forager, planning is critical, not reaction to ermergencies. And language would give great advantage in planning. Overall, all human labor including in that of the earliest humans is enhanced enormously by its _social_ nature. Language, myths, stories about ancestors hunting and gathering expands this social nature back generations. A hunting and gathering group of humans has its ancestors hunting and gathering with them because of language, myth, kinship systems, and this makes it highly social. The great sociality is an enormous adaptive advantage compared to species that do not have this sociality. The great enhancement of sociality that language and culture give bestows and enormous adaptive advantage on humans, from the beginning of the species. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Part 1 on the Communist Internationals
In a message dated 4/12/2010 5:53:09 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, _editor_revdem@ indiatimes. com_ (_mailto:editor_ (mailto:editor) _ _rev...@indiatime_ (mailto:rev...@indiatime) s.com) writes: Speech by Mátyás Rákosi, General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party at the Meeting of the Central Committee, 17 May 1946 Date: 05/17/1946 Source: Archives of the Institute for Political History (AIPH), Budapest, 274. f. 2/34 Description: Speech by Mátyás Rákosi, General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party at the Meeting of the Central Committee, 17 May 1946. “When we arranged the third International, I remember the trouble we went to show that we wanted a centralized, strong International with executive powers, similar to how Marx imagined the International in 1864, and not just the sorting office and so on that the second International became before the First World War. And this was the catastrophe of the third International. Because instead of every country looking separately for the conditions for revolution, and not trying the impossible task of centralizing and directing the whole movement, it directed it from the center. The result was that the parties gave up independent politics, continually looked in the direction of the center, and waited for its instructions. This view led the comrades to announce the discontinuation of the third International. And afterwards, now that the International has been discontinued, the parties are coming forth one after the other to say how the existence of the International limited their progress, e.g. most recently we heard from our Yugoslav comrades how much such a central institution held them back, which, unaware of local conditions, sometimes demanded quite the opposite of what they needed. So such an International can no longer be established. On the contrary, the International should be such that it does not hinder the progress of individual parties, that it provides a means for individual parties to execute the tasks leading to the liberation of the proletariat, bearing local circumstances in mind. I should immediately say that as far as this is concerned, the new International cannot be compared to the previous ones. This will not be an organizing body; its task will be to compose, to help in making objections, to communicate the good or bad experiences of one country's communist party to that of another country, that they should learn from their neighbors' experiences and losses. This will undoubtedly be very useful, as not just us, but communist parties the world over are beginning to feel that without the exchange of experiences and objections they cannot produce adequate plans on international questions.” Comment 64 years after Rakosi speech for the formation of a new Communist International, one “unrepentant Marxist” and moderator of Marxism List echo’s the same sentiment in a lengthy six part series on the Four Communists Internationals. (quote) “In this, the third installment of a series of articles on attempts to build workers or socialist internationals, I am going to discuss the Comintern but within a narrow historical and geographical framework, namely the German revolution of the early 1920s. It will be my goal, as it was in an article written about 10 years ago titled The Comintern and German Communism, to debunk the notion of a wise and efficacious Comintern. As opposed to mainstream Trotskyist opinion, I do not view the Comintern prior to Stalin’s rise to power as a model to emulate. Looking back in particular at the role of Lenin and Trotsky, not to speak of outright rascals like Karl Radek and Bela Kun, the only conclusion that sensible people can be left with is that the German Communist Party would have been much better off if the Comintern had simply left it alone. (end quote) A Marxist unraveling of any social process involves a couple of things, namely approach and method. Although approach and method of inquiry becomes a uniform outlook for Marxists, the young comrades familiarizing themselves with Marx method are to understand that it is obligatory to always place things in their environment and context. Before attempting to capture the dialectic of the self movement of a thing, anything, the environment which is acting upon the context of class struggle, organization and the individual has to be described because it is the environment and its intimate interactive connection with living processes that sets the condition for development, change and the leap from one qualitative stage to the next. What is fundamental in the environment that everyone loves to call “the class struggle” is the material power of productive forces and their ceaseless changes. By productive forces is meant “means of production” + human beings. “Means of production” are in turn “productive forces
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Praxis interpreters of Marxism
I certainly quote all those often. Charles On 4/14/10, Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org wrote: I'm in a rush right now, but the main inspirations for my perspective come from: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htmIntroduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, February, 1844. Thesis 3 of http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htmTheses on Feuerbach, 1845 http://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/marxsci1.htmlPrivate Property and Communism from the Economic-Philosophical Manuscriptshttp://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/marxsci1.html of Karl Marx (1844) Marx of course made key statements on praxis from the doctoral dissertation Epicurean notebooks of 1841 through The German Ideology and Theses on Feuerbach (1945). At 01:57 PM 4/14/2010, c b wrote: On 4/14/10, Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org wrote: Syntactic ambiguity or ineptitude on my part. I meant: . . . nor is attempting to deny Marx's materialism necessary in order to develop the concept of praxis. ^^^ CB: Yes. Do you derive praxis from Marx's phrase practical-critical activity in the first Thesis on Feuerbach ? The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism that of Feuerbach included is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the thought objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective activity. Hence, in The Essence of Christianity, he regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice is conceived and fixed only in its dirty-judaical manifestation. Hence he does not grasp the significance of “revolutionary”, of “practical-critical”, activity. ^^^ At 01:40 PM 4/14/2010, c b wrote: It's not necessary to develop the concept of praxis ? On 4/14/10, Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org wrote: Here is where I would agree with Hillel-Rubin as against Robinson, Dunayevskaya, and many others. Trying to play off Marx's advocacy of naturalism as a transcendence of both idealism and materialism is the bogus ploy here. But note please that praxis philosophers do not all go for this gambit, nor is it necessary to develop the concept of praxis. See also my review: http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/ruben-dh-2.htmlReview of David-Hillel Rubin, http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/ruben-dh-2.htmlMarxism and Materialism: A Study in Marxist Theory of Knowledge ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Praxis interpreters of Marxism
But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. -- Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right To have one basis for life and another for science is apriori a lie. -- Private Property and Communism from the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts of Karl Marx (1844) At 09:20 AM 4/15/2010, c b wrote: I certainly quote all those often. Charles On 4/14/10, Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org wrote: I'm in a rush right now, but the main inspirations for my perspective come from: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htmIntroduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right, in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, February, 1844. Thesis 3 of http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htmTheses on Feuerbach, 1845 http://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/marxsci1.htmlPrivate Property and Communism from the Economic-Philosophical Manuscriptshttp://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/marxsci1.html of Karl Marx (1844) Marx of course made key statements on praxis from the doctoral dissertation Epicurean notebooks of 1841 through The German Ideology and Theses on Feuerbach (1945). ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Guy Robinson: blog (4)
There is at least one surviving blog by Guy Robinson: Guy's Philosophical Nuggets http://dalkeyguy.blogspot.com/ Among other things, his correspondence with Thomas Kuhn can be found here. As is usual for all reactionary philosophies, Robinson's bugbear is Descartes and the Enlightenment. For an advocate of dialectics, there is no dialectical thinking here. See Robinson's first post: http://dalkeyguy.blogspot.com/2007/11/questioning-questions-1-we-need-to-ask.htmlQuestioning the Qestions Now look at this: http://dalkeyguy.blogspot.com/2007/12/reconstructing-science.htmlReconstructing Science Here, in lukewarm support for Meera Nanda's hardcore anti-pomo anti-subjectivist approach to science, Robinson reveals his philosophical bankruptcy. Yet at the same time we can find deeply problematic Galileo's image of 'The Book of Nature' in which the sciences are already 'written in mathematical symbols'. Equally problematic is the picture of scientific progress as the approach to some ultimate and final truth. That view of a truth standing above and outside of all of humanity, human interests, human practices and human languages has a pretty clearly theological character that ought to ring some alarm bells amongst Marxists. It is not that we have to find some via media between the 'realist' and the 'anti-realist'. We have to see that both positions are incoherent and unintelligible. Wrong! It is neither Marxist nor helpful to picture scientific progress in the way Meera Nanda wants to, as 'increase in truthfulness', that is, as an approach to to some (presumably unattainable) ideal, an 'ultimate truth'. I have criticized this 'approach' model of progress elsewhere (also in Philosophy and Mystification - ch.11, 'On Misunderstanding Science'). Here I will say only that it is both undialectical and un-Marxist, and that we can make sense neither of the ideal nor of the notion of approaching it. (It has its political counterpart in the utopian socialisms that were roundly and rightly criticized by Marx and Engels.) Drivel! You can read the rest of Robinson's amalgam of sense and nonsense for yourself. But this can serve as evidence of the worthlessness of Wittgensteinian Marxism. Scientific Realism and the correspondence theory of truth are correct; their opposites are wrong. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
